What's Beyond the Barriers
by Voltron-dumpster
Summary: A mysterious alien race has taken over planet earth, and enslaved all of humanity. There was a mighty struggle, but all fighters were subdued except for the few who fled. Lance McClain is one of the prisoners in the camp who dreams of freedom and rebellion. He and his friends have been ready to escape for years, but what will happen when they are finally given the opportunity?
1. Chapter 1

Morning dawned on the camp with a soft glow, illuminating the harsh barbed wire fences and cold metallic buildings. The sun seemed almost unwilling to rise, and reveal the darkness and misery which crept about the confines of the camp. Yet rise it did, and with it came a warmth that could almost shatter the veil of sorrow which hung thick in the air. There was movement from within the camp and one by one, people began to emerge from the lifeless metallic structures. They lined up in rows two wide, and began to slowly move in a monotonous procession towards the largest building in the camp. It was obvious to any onlookers that the routine had been preformed many times before. The people dragged their feet and walked with a slow and tired rhythm that indicated their wish for a break in the pattern. A break in the pattern there would be, but not then... not until the uprising began.

The people continued to the large building, each being checked at the gate by a strange looking creature before being admitted inside. They then sat at long tables and were fed meals of tasteless grey slop, and what could only be water. The water itself tasted better than the disgusting food, and many people forced the food down before washing it into their stomachs with the lifesaving water. They were carefully monitored by monstrous guards, so stealing any food wasn't an option, and getting up was severely looked down upon. Making any sort of suspicious movement was a cause for immediate discipline and imprisonment. Therefore the people, naturally, were in great fear for their lives and remained in strict order as they finished their meager portions.

After what could be considered breakfast, the people were herded out into an open plaza with packed dirt ground and walls around it. They were sectioned off into work groups by age and strength, and escorted off to do tasks. Some of the tasks included farming, mining, building, and working in assembly line factories. The old, sick, and very young often worked in the factories as they could not bear the heavy lifting and grunt work that came with many of the other jobs. Their alien captors were merciless, and worked the humans down to nothing. They abused and threatened them, causing fear and a thirst for escape and rebellion. The camps were a way for the aliens to keep humanity in check, and use them to accomplish tasks they did not wish to partake in... yet they served to stir up an unspoken feeling within the ones who had not given up already.

One such young hopeful was a boy by the name of Lance McClain. He was only six years old at the time of the invasion of earth, but his large and loving family had kept him protected from the newfound evil that had appeared from deep space. They kept him nurtured and well cared for, slipping away to a remote location when the world's governments began to fall. When the creatures came for them, Lance's family was unable to run any longer and was forced to surrender after one of his brothers went down fighting. They were placed in the camps with the rest of the survivors, and forced into labor. Lance was still very much spoiled by his family, however, and they would slip him extra portions of food in hopes that he would become strong enough one day to start a rebellion. Strong he did become, and with each passing year he had to be put in line many times by the alien overseers more and more times.

Now, he was being herded along with another group of strong young men and women. Eleven years had passed since he and his family had been in captivity, and he had newly turned seventeen at the end of July. He was not as bulky as some of the other boys, but he was agile and strong despite that. His short, brown hair clung to his head in the stagnant summer air, and his soft dark eyes scanned the area where his group would be put to work. His friend Hunk stood in close proximity to him, and they both shared a glance as their overseer introduced them to a shaft that lead miles below the ground. Hunk was at ease in the mines, and was almost always assigned to mining duty... but Lance didn't enjoy it nearly as much. He preferred open spaces, where his mind could run free and there weren't hundreds of tons of rocks threatening to crush him from above. He and Hunk were good friends, they were just very different in nature. While Hunk was more cautious and gentle, Lance was rambunctious and rough. But neither of them minded in the least, and accepted their differences with open minds.

As the another overseer began to lower them into the mine, Lance nudged the larger Hunk and leaned close to him.

"Hey, do you think they'll remember to give us lunch this time?"He asked, sounding a little worried for both of their sakes.

Both of them valued a good meal, and felt great frustration when they were not fed. The last time they had been down in the mines, their overseer had forgotten or decided not to feed them lunch and had them work all the way until dinner.

Hunk looked worried, wringing his hands together and perspiring slightly. He worried quite a bit, unlike his carefree companion.

"They'd better feed us. I don't know if I could stand going without another meal down here. This is tough work..." He responded, nodding slightly as if to reassure himself that he would get fed.

"It'll be alright big guy. Relax. If we get hungry we can eat some dirt or something."

Lance teased, patting him on the back reassuringly.

Though he cared about his friend greatly, he couldn't pass up an opportunity to mess with him. He messed with everyone he cared about, and tossing around a bit of teasing was one of his ways of showing affection.

"Not now, Lance! This is basically a life or death situation! If Shiro were here, he'd tell you to knock it off." Hunk whined, voice growing a little louder than the whisper they had both been previously using to communicate.

One of the alien overseers heard him, and immediately prowled over to the two teenagers, stopping the elevator right where it was.

"Is there a problem, you two?" The alien creature hissed, jerking its head violently in their direction.

"Do I need to knock you back into shape or take you to the prison?" The overseer growled, voice menacing with every word that shot from its sharp-toothed mouth.

The two boys quickly shook their heads, trying to look as unassuming and nonthreatening as possible. The alien glared at them then stalked back to the front of the silent crowd, and they resumed their descent down into the darkness of the mines.

After a long hard day of work, the tired humans were lifted back out of the mines in the same elevator. They were covered in numerous layers of dirt and grime, and many had blisters on their hands from using picks. When humanity had fallen, so too had their electric mining tools and drilling vehicles. The aliens refused to let survivors use such things, and had done away with them as a safety precaution. Picks could be dangerous, but not as dangerous as a sharp electric spinning blade.

When the people exited the mine, several of them collapsed to the ground in exhaustion. The remaining others helped them to their feet, and together they all shambled into the large dining hall. They parted ways, going to find families and friends to sit with. Lance and Hunk grabbed their meal trays, and went together to sit with Lance's family. Hunk's family had been gone since he was twelve, and he had been sort of adopted by Lance's mother Rosa. She was a fiercely protective woman, who didn't take to being bossed around by guards. Her fiery spirit was present in her son as well, and the two often spoke of escape and of freedom. That night they ate their meal in silence, Rosa sensing that her child was too tired to chat much. The silence was uncharacteristic of the family, and Hunk cleared his throat to try and bring some background noise in and keep out the awkward lack of sound.

"So... how was your day, Mrs. McClain?"

He asked in a friendly tone, his amiable personality making him easy to converse with.

The woman smiled slightly, her aging face still beautiful beneath years of hardship and wear. Her eyes resembled Lance's, but her hair was a sleek black color, and she was shorter than him.

"It was fine, Hunk. Thank you for asking... how was your day? I heard someone say your group was going into the mines." She responded, smoothing out the folds of her dress and looking over at her sort-of adopted son.

He smiled back at her and nodded, confirming the rumor she had heard. Lance nodded as well, poking at his food and making a face at it as if it would go away if he did so. Rosa laughed quietly, turning to her other children and breaking the tension by speaking to them about their days.

Lance began to eat slowly, thinking about how he really had felt that day. He decided that he had felt crummy, and despised the monotony of the same routine every single day. It was boring, hard, and painfully repetitive. Three things that he didn't enjoy in the least. When he and his family went back to the barracks for the night, he was still stewing over their predicament. As the lights were shut off for the night, and he curled up beside two of his siblings in their shared bunkbed, he thought of nothing but escape. He knew that one day, he would break out and start a rebellion. One day, he would free humanity and make the aliens pay for what they had done.


	2. Chapter 2

As the sun set on the horizon, a sandstorm whipped up just outside the boundaries of the camp. The fences creaked and shook, causing the humans tucked in their beds to lay awake in fear. They were thankful to be more protected inside of the sturdy barracks, but were worried that sand would blow in or cover the doorways so they were trapped. Outside of the barracks, the storm pushed onward as mercilessly as the heat of the sun at high noon. Anyone unlucky enough to be outside right then would have been completely covered in sand, unable to move or even cry out for help.

Farther off however, deeper into the heart of the desert, the sandstorm had reached the edge of a deep ravine. The precipice stretched for miles across the sandy wastelands, the river at the bottom resembling a twisted green snake. The storm could not reach the other side of the vast gap in the earth, and so it ceased its rage and began to settle to the earth.

The canyon, as it was referred to by the humans, was an old landmark that had seen many centuries of people come and go. Now, it had become home to a young man named Keith Kogane. Keith lived in a cave on the side of the canyon wall, safely away from sandstorms and aliens. The way to his cave was by a narrow and hard to access trail, which few could navigate. Keith shared his home with the wildlife of the canyon, and was able to feed himself by catching fish in the river and hunting after dark. The aliens didn't come out after dark, as they seemed to be interested in staying on their human slaves' schedule of night and day. This kept Keith safe from the wrath of the aliens, and left him less vulnerable to attack when he went out hunting.

After the sandstorm, Keith waited for the sun to fully set, then set out of his cave down the small trail into the canyon. He intended to hunt for wild mountain goats that night, and take one home to eat. Food had been scarce since the aliens had arrived, yet Keith was able to adjust his body to the food he was able to get. He was a survivor, and wouldn't stop fighting until he was dead and gone. That was one of the reasons why he was down in the cavern, and not in captivity like the rest of the humans.

When he was young, his father had taken him far away from the aliens, deep into the desert to a tiny house where they lived in peace. As Keith grew older, his father taught him to fight and gather food to survive in even the harshest places on earth. Then one day, Keith's father had mysteriously disappeared from their small house, leaving Keith utterly alone in the middle of the vast expanses of desert. Of course he had known danger was on the way, so he had packed up what he could and left for the hiding place his father had shown him in the nearby canyon. He had lived there ever since, waiting for his father to return, or an opportunity to free his fellow humans from their enslavement.

Keith wandered nimbly down the trail into the canyon, stopping every now and then to listen to the noises of the night and examine his surroundings. He spotted a pile of fresh goat droppings, and smiled smugly before taking attaching his spear to his belt, and climbing up the cliff face towards a ledge he knew goats liked to sleep on. It was a rough climb, but he was fully determined to get himself a goat for dinner.

When he reached the ledge, to his dismay he found that there weren't any goats resting atop it. He growled angrily, frustrated with himself for making such an impulsive decision. Now he would have to climb all the way back down to the trail! Climb back down he did, but in his anger he slipped at the bottom of the cliffside and tumbled out onto the path. He was just barely able to keep himself from falling off the path and into the deep canyon, holding onto the rocky path for dear life as he pulled himself back up onto it. Chastising himself again for being so stupidly impulsive, he dusted himself off and continued down the trail in search of some unsuspecting dinner.

Keith got home just as the sun was rising, with a rabbit he had freshly caught at the bottom of the canyon. It had been skinned and cleaned at the riverside, and he stabbed a sharpened stick through it before propping it over his fire pit. He lit a fire with flint and a bit of steel, and soon had a nice little blaze going. The flames leaped, licking at the rabbit meat and dancing about their bed of charcoal and embers. Keith watched it, mesmerized by the lovely scarlet and gold flames as they played like a wild creature. He had always liked fire, and appreciated its light and warmth. It was beautiful, yet dangerous- a force to be reckoned with and respected.

Shortly, the rabbit was finished cooking. Its delicious aroma filled the cave and made its occupant's mouth water as he realized just how hungry he was. Keith tore into the food with vigor, finishing off half of the rabbit before he felt full enough to slow his actions. The remaining half of rabbit was stored away in an old cooler, and locked up away from creatures that may want it. Keith stood, stretching and yawning as he stared out at the canyon which was becoming illuminated by the rising sun. It was time for him to go back to sleep, and wait for sunset once more. He crawled into the very back of the cave, and curled up atop a mess of tattered blankets and pillows, not even bothering to get out of his clothing. It was better to wear clothes to bed and be ready for anything, in Keith's opinion. He played with a long purplish dagger for a few minutes, before sighing and pulling a blanket up over himself.

"Goodnight dad... goodnight mom." He whispered, before beginning his descent into sleep.


End file.
